I have so much to learn.
This is something I face every day.
So. Much. To. Learn.
How can I possibly manage this task of turning two beautiful children into well adjusted adults?
(Am I even a well adjusted adult?)
...
I am starting this blog so I can have somewhere to collect my thoughts, and document our journey. I hope and pray, that our experiences will encourage and possibly even be some small help to those who come after us.
Who are we? We are a family who follows Christ. You should know that up front. Everything we set out to do should be from a place of seeking to glorify God. But in that, we are not perfect. We make mistakes. We ask for forgiveness, and then we pick ourselves up and move on.
Our homeschooling journey began two years ago, as my older child was entering kindergarten. Simply, I was not comfortable with turning my daughter over to someone else's care and direction for that amount of time, when I had the opportunity to stay home and spend that time with her myself. I had been home schooled for some years, graduating with a GED. My husband has his high school diploma, and also a somewhat jaded experience with his public school experience. I figured that I couldn't do that badly with the easy kindergarten stuff, so away we went.
We started with a state ALE (Alternative learning experience) which helped offset the curriculum costs, and also provided me with some much needed accountability in the process. We had a pretty good experience with that program, but near the end of the second year, we started feeling a little stifled by the curriculum. Honestly, we (my oldest daughter and I) were pretty bored with what we had left to do to finish the school year, and our boredom manifested as a general lack of enthusiasm, which in turn created tension and conflict, and a general sense of terror in me personally.
So I had myself a little internal homeschooling midlife crisis.
Can I do this (bored, uninspiring, unmotivated home education) for another 12 years?
In my panic I started researching local private schools (holy $$$$ batman!) and self medicated with over indulgent, mind-numbing stints on facebook and pinterest.
By the grace of God, I stumbled on this image.
Duh.
I had started homeschooling in the same mindset I'm sure others have before me.
Home schooling should look just like school. At home.
Read as: If I check all the boxes, and we finish all our curriculum on schedule, and shelf our natural creative instincts in favor of one more math worksheet, we will be successful and I can pat myself on the back.
I was a fish trying to climb a tree. Believing that I was stupid.
I had forgotten what it meant to be me. I had jettisoned my strengths and instincts, sacrificing them on the altar of what I had defined as "best" when it came to the art of home education. I had somewhere along the line decided that a regimented, scheduled, never deviating, always with perfect results sort of home school was the only one that would do.
I aimed for the top of that tree, and swam until I hated it.
I had forgotten -in all my grandiose efforts to prove to myself that I was "good enough" to do this- to take into account who I am, and my own personality, strengths, and weaknesses. Well, maybe I had taken into account my weaknesses. Schedules? Routines? Not my strong point. Organized? Me? Not so much. So I went after the things that tend to feel like death to my personality, and I went with a vengeance. We did the same things, at the same time of day. Every. Day.
Nothing makes me want to do something less than having to do it the same way over and over and over. Call it ADD. Whatever. It's me. I follow the wind. Call it the curse of being a creative... I sure did, and in no way did I acknowledge the strengths that are the flip side of that coin as we trudged on and found less and less motivation to continue.
I was a stupid fish for almost two years, and it almost killed our joy for learning. For whatever reason, I had convinced myself that I would never make it to the top of the "perfect home school" tree. The tree where I could validate myself and gain self worth through my performance as a mother.
Once I started of thinking about who I really am, and the things I can do well, I was able to open my eyes and my heart a little wider. I started looking and homeschooling styles, reading about how kids learn and how we can educate the joy of discovery right out of them, I realized, that I am who I am, and the God who created me made me this way for a purpose, and if the desire to homeschool was really placed on my heart by him, that he would indeed equip me to do so.
With that thought sorted, I checked out every book the library had about home education, learning styles, etc. I pinterested and googled and drove my husband nuts in what became a homeschooling nesting period. And, somewhere along that hyper kinetic self-educational spree, I stumbled on the Charlotte Mason method and finally found something that resonated with my heart, and my personality.
More to come...
